Awesome WebWorkers Support

[dignifiedquire]

Thanks to the efforts from @dryajov and @tswindell we are close to having full support for running js-ipfs in webworkers. This issue tracks the last outstanding issues for this.

Aegir

• Merge webworkers support into aegir
• Release aegir with webworker test support

PRs

• "Support for WebWorker." Fixing missing self definition which fails linting libp2p/js-libp2p-crypto#61
• fix support for WebWorkers multiformats/js-multihashing-async#11 and Added WebWorker environment support. multiformats/js-multihashing-async#12

Others

• Enable webworker tests for all js-ipfs* repos
• Enable webworker tests for all js-libp2p* repos
• Enable webworker tests for all js-multi* repos

[dryajov]

@dignifiedquire @diasdavid I can take this on:

Enable webworker tests for all js-ipfs* repos
Enable webworker tests for all js-libp2p* repos
Enable webworker tests for all js-multi* repos

This is required to move forward with #127

[daviddias]

This is awesome! Thank you @dryajov!

Can we then make a lot of noise sure everyones voice is represented on the request to have WebRTC in WebWorkers?

• https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webrtc/2015Oct/0000.html
• Add support for WebRTC Data Channel in Workers w3c/webrtc-pc#230
• https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=922363
• https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=302019
• https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/discuss-webrtc/ulHSVgHnnrk
• Make RTCDataChannels Transferable w3c/webrtc-pc#317

[dryajov]

Wanted to check in with where things are with this endeavor.

So far, I've managed to switch the use of window to self, and this seem to fix 90% of the issues. I've got most of it committed in my forks on github, if anyone is interested to check it out, please do. I'm not entirely sure about using self being the right way of doing it, and I'm not as familiar with webpack to know if there is a better approach (i'd rather a bundler taking care of context/env), but so far this has worked. @diasdavid @dignifiedquire @kumavis If you guys know of a better way please let me know; otherwise, I think we have a best practice suggestion to make to the community at large - ditch window in favor of self. 👅

So far, the biggest issue I ran into is with brorand, which is not assuming the webworker env correctly. I've got a PR coming that addresses it, and that fixes most of the issues with multihashes. But I'm not sure when thats going to be merged in, I might need help creating noise around it.

I will be creating PRs for each project shortly (today/tomorrow), so that everypbody can keep an eye on the progress and contribute where they see fit.

The rest of the issues are less trivial, and I will be going over them one by one and fixing as I go.

I'll keep everyone posted on progress.

Cheers!

[dryajov]

PR to address brorand - indutny/brorand#7

[kumavis]

i bet you could polyfill it

if (typeof window === 'undefined') self.window = self

[dryajov]

wouldn't that mess things up a bit inside a WW for other packages as well? As in incorrectly assuming that its running in a dom enabled env? Otherwise, thats a better approach.

[kumavis]

yeah thats a good point, its a bit hacky so beware